Australia: Love my Coke! Taking brand connectivity with consumers to a new level

Coca-Cola Amatil Ltd ("CCA") has recently taken brand
connectivity with consumers to a new level. Aficionados of
Coca-Cola can now quite literally take "ownership" of
their Coke by placing their name on it through Facebook or picking
up their own personalised bottle through your local vendor.

The "Share a Coke" campaign runs from 1 October for
three months as CCA drives a new marketing campaign to sell 268
million Cokes by Christmas! There are 150 names to brand your
bottle, or otherwise pop into your local Westfield Coke Kiosk for a
free personalisation.

The Share a Coke campaign is just another form of innovation
that has made CCA one of Australia's most successful beverage
producers.

I recently interviewed Terry Davis, CEO of CCA, at an American
Chamber of Commerce in Australia event on the subject of innovation
in business.

CCA has kept growing through one of the toughest retail periods
in 20 years and, according to Terry, this growth is largely a
reflection of "a culture of continuous innovation", with
every one of the group's 5,000 Australian employees able to
participate in CCA's annual "Innovation Awards".

Brands like Mother have been reinvented, Glaceau Vitaminwater
created and Coke "re-named" (through personalisation) in
a constant push by Coca-Cola in Australia to be different from
competitors and create products which are relevant to its target
market.

As Terry describes it, the catch phrase inside CCA is
"aggressively plan, cautiously execute". The culture is
to consider all ideas (no matter how "out there" they
are) and then robustly test and review them, backing intuitive feel
with proper market research.

The recent takeover of Fosters by SAB Miller is likely to free
up some cash (up to $300m) for Terry to get the creative juices
flowing even more.

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